However, in my 10-year-old mind, it couldn’t have been that bad since they never confronted him about it. Bad enough for my parents to tell me to avoid going near him when we visit after I told them about how he touched me “down there”. Maybe it was during “girl talk” with my guy friends in school.īut even before I figured it out, I knew my grandfather did something bad. Maybe it was when I studied Chapter 4 of Science in Form 3. Maybe it was when I discovered porn by accident. I can’t remember when I realised the disturbing intentions of his action. Quick-before anyone else came into the kitchen-but long enough for me to remember his stubby beard rubbing against my neck. So when grandfather asked me to follow him into the pantry and put his hands down my panties, I just stood there like the good doll I was while he sat on a stool behind me. I knew there was a hole somewhere in my nether regions but I thought it was just for peeing. I never once asked them, “Mommy, where do babies come from?” Maybe I wasn’t quite an inquisitive child. My parents were traditional in their ways (and very strict). And yet now we have 8-year-olds using the word in grammatically correct sentences. I only understood its meaning a whole year later. I didn’t know the word ‘f*ck’ until I was 15. With about 9 other relatives on the first floor. It was in a dusty half-lit store pantry on the ground floor of my grandfather’s house. It didn’t happen in an alleyway, or in a sleazy motel room. It was silent-mostly because I had no idea what was going on. It’s not like most stories that you might have read about there was no struggling, no screaming, no taunting or violence.